1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates generally to an adaptive opto-emission imaging device and method thereof. Specifically, the invention relates to a method and an apparatus for reducing the amount of computation and time to provide real time image guidance during surgery.
2. Description of the Background Art
Nuclear medicine (NM) has provided physicians with important diagnostic and functional information on specific organs, tissues and disease states. NM is employed primarily for the detection of disease in cardiology, oncology and neurology. It provides functional information e.g., metabolism, perfusion and tissue typing and differentiation, that other methods cannot.
Radiographic imaging is the detection of radiation in order to form an image. By detecting the amount of radiation emanating from a test subject, the resultant image may give a representative view of the structure of the test subject.
Radiographic imaging typically employs gamma rays. Gamma rays are a form of radiation that is emitted by excited atomic nuclei during the process of passing to a lower excitation state. Gamma radiation is capable of passing through soft tissue and bone. Gamma radiation may be provided by a radiopharmaceutical, such as thallium or technetium, for example, that is administered to the patient. The radiopharmaceutical travels through the patient's body, and may be chosen to be absorbed or retained by an object (i.e., an organ of interest). The radiopharmaceutical generates a predictable emission of gamma rays through the patient's body that can be detected and used to create an image.
A radiographic imaging device may be used to detect radiation emanating from the patient and may be used to form an image or images for viewing and diagnosis. The radiographic imaging device may be a device such as a gamma or gamma ray camera, also referred to as a scintillation camera or an Anger camera. The radiographic imaging device allows a doctor to perform a diagnosis on a patient in a non-invasive manner and additionally may allow the doctor to observe organ function. In addition, the radiographic imaging device may be used for other imaging functions.
A radiographic imaging device typically contains one or more radiographic sensor modules, such as a solid state detector module. The detector may be a module made of cadmium zinc telluride (CZT) that generates an electrical signal representative of the location of gamma ray interaction and the energy of the gamma ray in the detector material. The accumulated counts at each stored location (as stored in a memory device) may be used to create an image of the distributed radiation field of interest.
Surgical probes may also be used to detect tissues emitting gamma radiation as a guide to a surgeon. The probes' sensitivity to gamma radiations may give analogic signals whose numbers are proportional to the detected radiopharmaceutical concentration. As details of conventional surgical probes are available in numerous publications and patents including, by way of example, U.S. Pat. No. 6,204,505 (Call), U.S. Pat. No. 6,021,341 (Scibilia et al.), U.S. Pat. No. 5,961,458 (Carroll), U.S. Pat. No. 5,932,879 (Raylman), U.S. Pat. No. 5,916,167 (Kramer et al.), U.S. Pat. No. 5,851,183 (Bucholz) and U.S. Pat. No. 5,732,704 (Thurston et al.), no attempt is made herein to provide a detailed description of such devices.
Anatomical imaging modalities are currently used for image guidance. These include digital subtraction angiography (DSA), computed tomography (CT), ultrasound (US), and magnetic resonance imaging (MRI). During anatomical image-guided surgery, patient images acquired intra-operatively are aligned with scans acquired pre-operatively from one or more of the imaging modalities listed above. High performance computing is critically important to achieve accurate intra-operative images in a time frame compatible with surgical intervention. As these procedures expand into routine clinical medicine, it is increasingly clear that image fusion and registration technology have their limitations in dealing with tissue deformation occurring during a surgical task. The accuracy of data, memory and computationally intensive segmentation algorithms are significantly important. However, tradeoffs in image quality and accuracy are necessary to provide fast intra-operative images.
There is therefore a need for an imaging device that reduces the amount of computation and time to provide real time image guidance, and high quality, accurate intra-operative images.
There is also a need for an imaging device that is noninvasive and non-restrictive in projecting tumor and areas differentiated by radiation emitting tissues that lie below the visible surface (i.e., organs affected by tumor).